TUESDAY

Is there no way to finish it all? It's noon time now, and since nine

o'clock this morning I have heard cries and screams and curses. I have

seen tears, tears, tears. The investigators are worse than tigers

to-day. They are all taking revenge on the poor for yesterday's

occurrence, and Sam is surpassing himself. He spits again at one. I wish

it happened that his "greeting" fell on me. I would beat him to within

an inch of his life. Why does not one of the applicants twist that boy's

neck! They are finished. They have no blood. Water flows in their veins.

No sooner did the doors open than one of the applicants had a fit. Mrs.

H., pretending the woman faked, began to curse her.

Mrs. H. jumped at one of the women and called out loudly: "What do you

want here? You will not get a cent. Get out or I will have you

arrested." The woman began to cry and tear her hair, but Mrs. H. yelled,

"Get out, get out," and called the janitor to do his charitable work. As

though Mrs. H.'s temper was contagious, all the other investigators

were horrible. Mrs. B. and Mrs. D. and Cram and Sam, and even that slip

of a girl, that cripple with short arms like a kangaroo, treated the

poor as though they had all committed the worst of crimes. That girl is

only six weeks on the job. She is a brute now. No wonder! with such good

teachers. The women sat on the benches and moaned and cried and tore

their hair. That woman who had a fit came back to her senses. She got

three dollars and was sent home. Mrs. H. protested. She still insists

that it is all a fake. "Almost every applicant could throw a fit," she

said; "one, two, three and they are down on the floor." Sam said that he

has a new business plan: a school of epilepsy, ten dollars for the

complete course. They could earn money with such a trade. It was the

worst half-day I remember, and it was very hot.

Really it could be called the "Garden of Tears." All the eyes are red

and cold sweat covers the face of every applicant. As Mrs. B. passed by

the woman in black who had her face covered with her shawl she tore it

down and yelled: "We want to see your sweet face, madame. If you are

ashamed to show yourself there is no need to come here at all."

All the colour was gone from the woman's face. She looked more like a

ghost than a human being. Her face and lips white. Her sunken eyes

black, her mourning clothes accentuated the picture. She sat motionless

for a few minutes then she covered her face again and went out slowly. I

followed her to the door. She hesitated about which direction to take.

Several times she retraced her steps as if she wanted to return to the

waiting room, but she finally decided to go toward Fourteenth Street. I

saw her stop before a window and dry her eyes with her handkerchief. She

then disappeared down Fourteenth Street. "What will become of her?" I

thought. "She has two small children, two small girls. If the mother is

in the street what will become of the children?" Why did that brute

force her to show her face? That's what she always does. When I once

asked her why she goes around to the neighbours of an applicant and

announces that "So and so belong to the charities," she answered me,

"Whoever is ashamed should not beg." She would brand them on the

forehead with a hot iron.

I don't see why the Anti-Trust Law could not be applied to organised

charity! They have made a "trust in pity," and are now treating the

producers and consumers as they like.

That woman Erikson, who said yesterday, "I won't, I won't give them up,"

stood at the door more than an hour. She was not let in. Her letter was

taken away yesterday. Now she will have to make out another application

and wait for an answer. The committee only meets next week. I went out

and asked her whether she had decided to give the children to an orphan

home.

"No, I won't," she answered, "but I wanted to see these gentlemen and

see whether I could not soften their hearts. We could live on so

little--on so little," she pleaded.

"It's of no use," I told her. "You can't soften their hearts. They are

made of rock."

"Then what can I do?" she asked, crying.

"Anything you want, or you don't want, but don't come around here. The

less you show yourself here the better for you."

She looked at me in a funny way. What did she think of me anyhow? Who

knows what sense she gave to my words! God knows. I don't know what

people will think when they read this. If they only knew what I know.

There is no place on earth to duplicate this one. Nowhere can you hear

and see what you hear and see here. The walls and pictures and benches

and floors, everything is soaked in tears.

The Erikson woman got hold of the Manager on the stairs while he was

going to his lunch. She cried. He listened to her very attentively, then

he answered in that silky voice of his, "You put the chairman in a very

bad temper yesterday, but I will do my best for you. Call next week."

She wanted to say something but he strode away with such majesty! It's

of no use, I foresee. She will give her children and they will place her

somewhere as a servant. There is a great demand for domestic help. The

domestic help problem is filling the columns of the daily papers. The

office will do its best to solve the problem.

I had a conversation with the janitor. He told me that the job disgusts

him and if times were better he would throw it up. I thought for a

moment that he meant the brutality of the investigators, but no. He says

that these scoundrels, paupers, are yelping too much. He can't eat his

dinner in peace. He lives with his wife and children in the building.

What will become of his children? The sights they see every day! They

understand it all. His little girl, a child of seven, calls the people

"_delelicts_." "Papa, quick, a _delelict_ threw a fit," she called out

yesterday when coming from school for lunch. The father was upstairs.

There is an old man coming every Tuesday for his two dollar pension. Sam

announced him as the "dean." It can't be Sam's expression. He must have

heard it from some one else of the staff. The cashier, perhaps! She is

the daughter of the "terror." A true child, no mistake possible. She

never pays out a cent without a remark. If it's five dollars she says,

"One hundred times for the movies." If it's ten dollars, "Sale at

Wanamaker's, latest style French hats $9.98." "If it were in my power,"

she once told me, "they would never get cash. Bread, and meat and

vegetables, but not a cent of cash."

Strange they are always afraid lest the poor have too much joy! They

would like to see them always crying, kneeling, begging. Before going

for lunch, Cram had a long chat with the cashier. They are on very good

terms. Mrs. B. even hinted at a secret engagement between the two. What

a difference in their voices when they speak to one another and when

they speak to applicants! It seems to me very strange to see them smile

or laugh. I never thought them capable of that. I would like to see them

cry once. Some spiritual pain, or a brick to hit them, and then to see

them cry. Why not? They have drawn enough from the fountain of

suffering--the eyes of the poor.

After the lunch hour I was given the address of Mrs. Erikson and told to

reinvestigate her case. She has made an impression on the manager. He is

not quite so brutal as his subordinates. He knows that charity is not

solving the question of poverty and he doubts all the investigators. But

he can't help it. The current of the old established system is too

strong for him. As a matter of fact they are all working against him.

Not openly, of course. They are continually intriguing and plotting one

against the other. The women are Machiavellis in petticoats. Every move

is spied, reported. They even investigate privately.

I visited Mrs. Erikson. The usual thing. Have I grown callous? I don't

seem to notice the difference between one case of poverty and any other.

Even their talk does not interest me as before. I anticipate everything:

two months back rent; owe eight dollars to grocer; one dollar and fifty

cents to the coalman; gas bill, etc. They all owe back rent and the

grocer and the coalman, the gas bill. Their rooms are all alike. Beds,

table and chairs. They even look alike. Their original features are

stamped out by the seal of charity. Their voices are alike, speaking in

a subdued minor key of the same pitch and the same pleading inflection.

Her husband had been a longshoreman. He must have been a beautiful

specimen of manhood. She showed me his picture, a blond giant. He died

of Bright's disease. The two little girls resemble their father very

much. I remember that Mrs. H. doubted the morality of an applicant

because the child did not resemble his father. The woman probably likes

to read good books, I saw Bjoernson Bjornson's novels on the

mantelpiece. She gets her books from the library in Grand Street; I saw

the stamp. I don't know what to write in my report. The woman can't go

out to work. She has to attend to the children. She does not want to

separate from them. She even hinted at suicide. I know she will not do

it. There was no bread in the house. I left her a few cents. The

neighbours help her out, but they are all poor people. I am sure that

the chairman will not allow her any pension. She will have to give her

children to the orphan home. I even tried to convince her that it is the

best she could do. But she cried so much!

It is terrible. No escape. However, I make my report; it will not help

her in the way she wants. She has antagonised the chairman and he is not

a forgiving man. And to think that he represents Christ on earth! He is

Charity! I know that he is one of the worst employers. He crushes every

strike with an iron fist. He has stopped at nothing yet. He contributes

an enormous sum to organised charity. Is that payment for the pleasure

they give him of torturing the poor?

I cannot eat, nor sleep. The cries of the day echo in my ears. When I

try to close my eyes I see a woman throwing a fit or how they force one

out. I always fear that Sam is aiming a "greeting" at me. The whole day

long the image of the woman in black directing herself towards

Fourteenth Street pursued me. How pale she was! Where is she now? Drunk

in some back room of a saloon, a few men around her; and she laughs and

cries. Early in the morning she will return to the children and buy

bread and milk with the price of a night's degradation. How that brute

tore the shawl from her face! "Show your sweet face, madame. If you are

ashamed to show yourself there is no need to come here at all." When a

young woman has lost her shame why should she beg? It's midnight now. I

can't sleep. Where is she now? Where are they all? All those organised

charity has driven to the street. Come out! Show your accusing finger.

And the ones driven to an early grave. Come and show yourselves. Line up

before the building. When the morning comes and the sun shines let the

people see you in broad daylight. From your fleshless mouths cry

"Murderers"! and let the whole world echo with your cry.